Pelosi Floor Speech on the Passing of Congressman John Lewis

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Speaker Pelosi. I thank – Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding and appreciate her calling us together for this special order for a very special person.

This big picture of John Lewis was just put up here. ‘Rest in Power,' it says. You can't see from the TV, but over here in the front row is a big bouquet of white flowers. It's in the place where John usually sat in the front row of a section that many of the Members of the Congressional Black Caucus held forth, conspired sometimes, plotted and made progress for the American people.

It's appropriate that we have those flowers there, where John sat for so many years. John Meacham, who is writing a book on John Lewis, told us yesterday on a Caucus call that when John was born he was born into a garden. He loved to be in the garden. He loved to be with the chicks, as we know, little chickens. And he loved to see things grow, loved to see things grow and he lived his life in that way. He loved to see progress grow, he loved to see love and peace grow, he loved to see ideas grow and he loved to see a more perfect union grow.

Many of our colleagues will have many things to say this evening and because of the special order, I don't have my usual one minute which is endless, so I'll be briefer and save some remarks for another time. But here's what I want to say. Just to say this:

John had always been, has always been about nonviolence. That was his spirit, in everything that he did was respectful of other views and respectful of other people. In the spirit of nonviolence, that was Dr. Lawson, Reverend Lawson taught that to him, to Dr. King and the rest, and it was, much of it, in the spirit of Mahatma Gandhi and the nonviolence that he put forth.

In Sanskrit, Mahatma Gandhi's language, the word for nonviolence, it's satyagraha. That word means two things: nonviolence, and insistence on the truth. And John Lewis, nonviolently, always insisted on the truth. Whether it was at a lunch counter, the truth of equality; whether it was upholding the Constitution, the truth of our Founders; whether – in everything that he did, it was about truth and peace and love.

And so, I'm going to submit my statement for the record because, again, I'm not used to not having endless time as the Speaker of the House. But I do know that our colleagues have a great deal to say.

I just want to say this one thing. Again, one more thing. At the end of his life, the end of his time in Washington, D.C., right before he was preparing to go back to Atlanta, just a couple of weeks ago, in the middle of the night he decided, early in the morning, 4:00 a.m., that he was going to go, in the morning, to Black Lives Matter on the street.

So, one of the last official or public photos that we have of John Lewis is with the Mayor of Washington, D.C., and then alone, standing on that beautiful tapestry, Black Lives Matter. His connection – the connection from John, the boy from Troy, to Black Lives Matter, the future of a movement he was so much a part. May he rest in power. May he rest in peace.

I yield.